Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2021 i Entrepreneur's Startups

WANT MORE HOW-TO ADVICE? PICK UP OUR COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE START YOUR OWN BUSINESS AT ENTM.AG/SYOB. To the ordinary entrepreneur, closing and finalizing the sale is the completion of serving the customer’s needs. But for the pro, this is only the beginning. Closing the sale sets the stage for a relationship that, if properly managed by you, the entrepreneur, can be mutually profitable for years to come. There’s a widely recognized rule that states that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers. Repeat customers are the backbone of every successful business. So now that you know how to land customers, it is time to learn how to keep them. BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS It’s tempting to concentrate on making new sales or pursuing bigger accounts. But attention…

It as a Monday morning in mid-March. Schools in California had just gone remote, and Eric Yuan’s daughter was settling in for the first day of her new routine. Then she turned to him and, like kids were doing with their parents everywhere, asked him for help using Zoom. “She’d never asked me a question about Zoom!”says Yuan. Nor had he ever expected her to, even though he is the company’s founder and CEO. “When we created Zoom, the goal was to serve enterprise and business customers. I never thought about my kid having to use Zoom.” That’s when Yuan knew his world was about to change. This tool he built, which was once reserved for corporate communications, was becoming a defining part of everyday life. His task was no…

It’s important, in most instances, to keep your personal social media accounts separate from your business accounts. Many people blur the line between professional and personal, but when you own a business, it’s more important to be concerned about offending a professional contact with your personal photos or posts. It’s best to keep separate Facebook and Twitter accounts, in particular. And if you are a heavy YouTube user, keep your accounts separate there, too. LinkedIn, which is professional in nature to begin with, can be the exception if you keep your posts related to your industry or work.…

The year 2020 was a year that demanded wine. Erica Blumenthal and Nikki Huganir expected this. They didn’t expect the reason , of course—the horrible stress, the terrible tragedies, interminable lockdowns. Instead, they were envisioning pool parties, summer getaways, and the other carefree activities that lifted them toward the top of the summer’s hottest wine category. Blumenthal and Huganir are the founders of Yes Way Rosé, a brand that was born out of a catchphrase on Instagram but whose silly name has led to serious sales: It’s the no. 1 French canned wine, the no. 2 sparkling French rosé, and the no. 4 French rosé in America. Back in March of last year, just days before the nation spiraled into crisis, I visited them as they prepped for what was supposed to…

Dee Clemmons is never not working. The serial entrepreneur has spent nearly 30 years operating a combination of childcare facilities, a business consultancy, and a janitorial supplies company. And in 2016, she joined the Board of Commissioners in Henry County, Ga., where she recently won a reelection campaign. So in 2019, when her two daughters took her to Painting with a Twist on Mother’s Day, Clemmons was shocked to find herself ignoring the outside world for two hours of escape. She put her phone down, focused on her painting and her kids, and had an experience she calls “magical.”Before she left the studio, she’d googled the business to find out how she could get involved; one year later, she was ready to open her own location in McDonough, Ga. COVID-19…

Excellent customer service is more than what you say or do for the customer; it also means giving customers a chance to make their feelings known. Here are some suggestions for finding out what your customers want, need, and care about: 1 Attend trade shows and industry events that are important to your customers. You’ll find out what the competition is doing and what kinds of products and services customers are looking for. 2 Nurture a human bond, as well as a business one, with customers and prospects. Take them out to lunch, dinner, the ball game, or the opera. In the relaxed atmosphere of socializing, you’ll learn the secrets that will allow you to go above and beyond your competition. 3 Keep alert for trends; then respond to them.…

WANT MORE HOW-TO ADVICE? PICK UP OUR COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE START YOUR OWN BUSINESS AT ENTM.AG/SYOB. The days of in-person networking are quickly being overpowered by connecting on the internet. In the past decade, connecting on social networking sites has rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages billions of internet users. According to Statista, the number of worldwide active social media users is expected to reach more than 4.41 billion by 2025. In North America, more than 70 percent of the population has at least one social account. In the early years of this social movement, this approach to networking was overlooked as a marketing vehicle for business owners. That’s changed dramatically, although many small businesses still fail to take full advantage of social media communities in a…

It is vital that you create a powerful plan to keep your brand top of mind with your contacts. Set aside half a day at least once every three months to reach out to your connections by using one of the following approaches: 1 Send them an email once a month. You can announce something new in your business and simply touch base. 2 Phone them (or connect via chat or web meeting) to say hello. Ask them how they are first, and keep notes so you have a point of contact for the next call. You can close with an event or big announcement about your company, product, or service. 3 Write them a personal note. Notes work well for staying top of mind, and they take time, which…

HEY Cost $99 per year Hey (created by Basecamp) emphasizes receiving over sending. You pick who can email you and where their emails go, and everything else is ignored. Hey for Work, released in February, hosts business domain emails. hey.com ZOHO MAIL Cost $1 per month per user for the lite version One of the best options for hosted business emails using your domain, Zoho is strong on compliance, security, and reliability. You can comment and tag emails, à la your Twitter feed. mail.zoho.com TWOBIRD Cost Free Twobird uses your existing Gmail account. The “two birds”are email and notes, which are all integrated into the app for collaboration purposes. twobird.com…

As an NCAA Division 1 athlete at the United States Military Academy, Dan Murphy quickly learned the value of a strong team—for success, and for his own sanity: “West Point can be stressful, and the soccer team became my respite.”After graduating and serving in the Army, he was craving that community when he discovered D1 Training, at the time a small gym in Nashville focusing on group training programs and coaching, started by fellow former D1 athlete Will Bartholomew. Murphy jumped at the chance to join the brand, and 16 years later, he is COO of the fast-growing franchise with more than 50 locations and 111 more in development. That early lesson from his military days still holds true as D1 scales: There’s strength in numbers. Was the plan always…

1 Provide expertise. “We have a mission to help people through guidance, which goes beyond just product. With [our cookware brand] Equal Parts, we have a robust offering of expertise on our website and brand blog. It’s a one-stop shop for home cooks that provides them with recipes, tips, and techniques. This helps create trust with our business, and our customers feel like they’re gaining value beyond a tangible product.” —NICK LING, CEO, Pattern Brands 2 Create incentives. “We have an ambassador program, where we provide our most loyal customers with a platform to create content that is shared on our social media channels. It transforms them from customers to brand advocates. We are strong believers in the power of community and use our channels as a two-way street for…

When Madison Semarjian was a college freshman, she had an idea for an app: It would be like Tinder, but for clothing—using AI to learn her personal style, and then pulling together outfits from a wide range of retailers that she could swipe left or right on (and of course, buy). Semarjian couldn’t shake the idea, so she spent all of college creating it—developing the tech, raising money, and signing partnerships with major brands like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Prada. She called the app Mada, and it launched in January 2020. It was a hit with the media and style lovers because nothing like it existed. But that quickly changed. A startup called The Yes soon launched with similar functionality and major backing; it’s co-run by the former COO of Stitch…

Beware of “trolling”on the net: A troll is someone who posts inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a discussion forum, group, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Unless you monitor your blog, social media accounts, etc., there may be no system in place to effectively deal with trolls. This becomes an issue for large platforms like Twitter and Facebook WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT TROLLS? 1 Interact. There’s nothing better than showing the world—or at least your ad audience—that you’ll stand up for your company and defend your brand. If someone has something negative to say, challenge them, but do it in a proactive and nonemotional way. This can be hard…

In these socially distant times, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a message for entrepreneurs and artists alike: You can still come together to collaborate! He is best known for his work in film and television, and has starred in such blockbusters as Inception and (500) Days of Summer—but with production schedules halted, he’s been spending even more time with the company he founded in 2010, HitRecord, which has seen a surge of interest. HitRecord began as a production company, but it has evolved into a platform that enables people to launch and join artistic projects. (In 2020, it won an Emmy for a project it had collaborated on with YouTube.) “People don’t just post things they’ve made on their own and say, ‘Look what I made,’”he says. “People contribute to each other’s…

Patrick Mock used to fly across the country with takeout containers of chicken and gyro. “I’d smell up the whole cabin just so I could bring some platters back for my friends and family in California,”he says. He was picking up those platters at The Halal Guys, a food cart on the corner of 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Mock ate there regularly when he lived in New York and worked as a management consultant. Then he moved to California, and the cart became a rare treat. Whenever he was back in town, he’d visit the cart, put in a big order, and stuff it all into a carry-on bag before heading to the airport. Mock’s friends, many of whom he had personally introduced to the brand, knew…